BEST BOOKS OF 2018

BEST BOOKS OF 2018

1. Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren by Colin Asher

2. Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History by Nick Soulsby

3. Tesla: Inventor of the Modern by Richard Munson

4. Fare Thee Well: The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead's Long, Strange Trip

by Joel Selvin

5. The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities

by Wayne Kramer

6. Point of View: New York City and the Birth of New Wave by Chris Stein

7. Bring It On Home: Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin, and Beyond--The Story of Rock's Greatest Manager by Mark Blake

8. Queen: Album by Album by Martin Popoff

9. Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices

by Matthew Cutter

10. Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

by Tim Mohr

11. The Lives of the Surrealists

by Desmond Morris

12. Ravens and Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography since 1945

by Lena Fritsch

13. Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America 

by Jesse Jarnow

14. Coal Black Mornings by Brett Anderson

15. The House of Worth: The Birth of Haute Couture by Chantal Trubert-Tollu

16. Bruce Springsteen: From Asbury Park, to Born to Run, to Born in the USA

by David Gahr

17. How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain

by Ruth Goodman

18. Pink Floyd: Album by Album

by Martin Popoff

19. Smash!: Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid, Nofx, and the '90s Punk Explosion

by Ian Winwood

20. Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy

by Benjamin Balint

BEST BOOKS OF 2018

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BEST MUSIC so far 2018

BEST MUSIC so far 2018

Janelle Monae “Dirty Computer”

Car Seat Headrest “Twin Fantasy”

Kali Uchis “Isolation”

U.S.Girls “In A Poem Unlimited”

Young Fathers “Cocoa Sugar”

Sleep “The Sciences”

Neko Case “Hell-On”

Shame “Songs Of Praise”

Daniel Avery “Song for Alpha”

Ty Segall “Freedom’s Goblin”

Parquet Courts “Wide Awake!”

Father John Misty “God’s Favorite Customer”

The Buttertones "Midnight In A Moonless Dream"

Gruff Rhys “Babelsberg”

Half Waif “Lavender”

Oneohtrix Point Never “Age Of”

Natalie Prass “The Future and The Past”

Hop Along “Bark Your Head Off, Dog”

Beach House “7”

Dr. Octagon “Moosebumps”

Khruangbin “Con Todo El Mundo”

Sunflower Bean “Twentytwo in Blue”

Soccer Mommy “Clean”

MGMT “Little Dark Age”

Jess Williamson “Cosmic Wink”

Dream Wife “Dream Wife”

Unknown Mortal Orchestra “Sex & Food”

Leon Bridges “Good Thing”

Drinks “Hippo Lite”

Superorganism “Superorganism”

Albert Hammond Jr “Francis Trouble”

Tom Misch “Geography”

Franz Ferdinand “Always Ascending”

David Byrne “American Utopia”

Lykke Li “So Sad So Sexy”

A Place To Bury Strangers “Pinned”

Moaning “Moaning”

Josh T. Pearson “The Straight Hits”

Jenny Hval “The Long Sleep”

Immersion “Sleepless”

Let’s Eat Grandma “I’m All Ears”

Kamasi Washington “Heaven and Earth”

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever “Hope Downs”

Snail Mail “Lush”

Nine Inch Nails “Bad Witch”

Melody’s Echo Chamber “Bon Voyage”

Johnny Marr “Call The Comet”

Gorillaz “The Now Now”

Gang Gang Dance “Kazuashita”

Jorja Smith “Lost and Found”

BEST MUSIC so far 2018

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RIP Chris Mehess 1964-2018

RIP Chris Mehess.

He passed peacefully Saturday morning in his house surrounded by his wife, sister and dad. 

He went on his own terms. He fought ALS for 3 years, and kept smiling until his last day.

RIP Chris Mehess 1964-2018

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Adam Parfrey RIP 1957-2018

ADAM PARFREY 1957-2018 RIP. The publisher of Feral House. Here's a picture I took of him in San Francisco in 1996. Like Barney Rosset and V. Vale, he turned us all on to so many cool books and records. He published books about apocalypse culture, punk rock, the lords of chaos, Ed Wood, the list is endless. I met him in early 1996. We did an Apocalypse issue of Cups Magazine. We interviewed him this day in 1996. The issue was almost like a tribute to Parfrey and Feral House books. Most of the magazine work I did in the 1990s was influenced by Parfrey in some way. It's sad to see him go away.

Adam Parfrey RIP 1957-2018

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Some more great records from 2017 that you missed

When I make my best list of the year, often I have not listened to every record. So I present to you some great records that I want to listen to, and many of these are ones that almost made my Top 50 list, and others I just recommend checking out. Many of these groups were bands that I saw live in the past year too!

Adult. "Detroit House Guests"

Sam Amidon "Following Mountain"

Beck "Colors"

Big Thief "Capacity"

Bjork "Utopia"

The Black Angels "Death Song"

Boss Hog "Brood X"

Molly Burch "Please Be Mine"

The Buttertones "Gravedigging"

Chastity Belt "I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone"

Destroyer "Ken"

Bob Dylan "Triplicate"

Mark Eitzel "Hey Mr Ferryman"

Elbow "Little Fictions"
Miya Folick "Give IT To Me" EP

Carla Dal Forno "The Garden"

Diamanda Galas "All The Way"

Goldfrapp "Silver Eye"

Grandaddy "Last Place"

Hanni El Khatib "Savage Times"

Kasabian "For Crying Out Loud"

Laurel Halo "Dust"

The Horrors "V"

Nikki Lane "Highway Queen"

LA Witch "LA Witch"

Liars "TFCF"

Luna "A Sentimental Education"

Aimee Mann "Mental Illness"

Imelda May "Life Love Flesh Blood"

Maximo Park "Risk To Exist"

Mogwai "Every Country's Sun"

The Moonlandingz "Interplanetary Class Classics"

Kevin Morby "City Music"

The National "Sleep Well Beast"

Gary Numan "Savage"

Oh Sees "Orc"

Hannah Peel "Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia"

Ariel Pink "Dedicated to Bobby Jameson"

Priests "Nothing Feels Natural"

Protomartyr "Relatives In Descent"

Lee Ranaldo "Electric Trim"

Ride "Weather Diaries"

Todd Rundgren "White Knight"

She-Devils "She-Devils"

Sparks "Hippopotamus"

Spoon "Hot Thoughts"

This Is The Kit "Moonshine Freeze"

Thundercat "Drunk"

Tops "Sugar At The Gate"

Torres "Three Futures"

UUUU "UUUU"

Cindy Wilson "Change"

Wolf Alice "Vision of Life"

Some more great records from 2017 that you missed

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Best Books of 2017

BEST 20 BOOKS 2017

1. The Invention of Angela Carter: Biography by Edmund Gordon

2. Lou Reed: A Life by Anthony DeCurtis

3. After Kathy Acker: A Biography by Chris Kraus

4. Everything Is Combustible by Richard Lloyd

5. Lonely Boy by Steve Jones

6. Somebody With A Little Hammer: Essays by Mary Gaitskill

7. Goethe: Life as a Work of Art by Rudiger Safranski

8. Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook

9. Vinyl, album, cover, art: The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue by Aubrey Powell

10. Hit So Hard: A Memoir by Patty Schemel

11. So Much Things To Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley by Roger Steffans

12. Conversation With Edwidge Danticat by Maxine Lavon Montgomery (editor)

13. Acker by Douglas A. Martin

14. Astrophysics For People In A Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

15. I Am The Wolf: Lyrics and Writings by Mark Lanegan

16. Farewell To The Muse: Love, War, and the Women of Surrealism by Whitney Chadwick

17. The New Analog by Damon Krukowski

18. Being Elvis: A Lonely Life by Ray Connolly

19. Meet Me In The Bathroom by Lizzy Goodman

20. MUTE: A Visual Document by Terry Burrows

FICTION

4321 by Paul Auster

The Future Won’t Be Long by Jarett Kobek

The Answers by Catherine Lacey

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Best Books of 2017

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The 50 Best Records of 2017

BEST ALBUMS OF 2017

1. St. Vincent “Masseduction”

2. Fever Ray “Plunge”

3. Kendrick Lamar “Damn”

4. Vince Staples “Big Fish Theory”

5. Valerie June “The Order Of Time”

6. King Krule “The Ooz”

7. The xx “I See You”

8. Perfume Genius “No Shape”

9. Father John Misty “Pure Comedy”

10. Wire “Silver/Lead”

WIRE (photo by Angel Ceballos)

PERFUME GENIUS (photo by Angel Ceballos)

11. Foxygen "Hang"
12. Aldous Harding “Party”

13. Slowdive “Slowdive”

14. Thurston Moore “Rock N Roll Consciousness”

15. Japanese Breakfast “Soft Sounds From Another Planet”

16. The New Pornographers “Whiteout Conditions”

17. Cigarettes After Sex “Cigarettes After Sex”

18. Phoebe Bridgers “Stranger In The Alps”

19. Paul Weller “A Kind Revolution”

20. Mark Lanegan “Gargoyle”

Live Photos of Thurston Moore, Slowdive, and Paul Weller by Alexander Laurence

21. Fazerdaze “Morningside”

22. William Basinski “A Shadow In Time”

23. Jesca Hoop “Memories Are Now”

24. Alessi’s Ark “Love Is The Currency”

25. Ty Segall “Ty Segall (2017)”

26. Jay Som “Everybody Works”

27. Julia Byrne “Not Even Happiness”

28. Tei Shi “Crawl Space”

29. Sleaford Mods “English Tapes”
30. Pere Ubu "20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo"

Alessi's Ark (photo by Angel Ceballos)

Jesca Hoop (photo by Angel Ceballos)

31. Alvvays “Antisocialities”

32. Circuit des Yeux “Reaching For Indigo”

33. Bedouine “Bedouine”

34. Julia Holter “In The Same Room”

35. Brian Jonestown Massacre “Don’t Get Lost”

36. Tinariwen “Elwan”

37. Moon Duo “Occult Architecture 1+2”

38. Miranda Lee Richards “Existential Beast”

39. Tennis “Yours Conditionally”

40. Temples “Volcano”

Brian Jonestown Massacre (photo by Angel Ceballos)

Foxygen (photo by Angel Ceballos)

   Miranda Lee Richards (photo by Angel Ceballos)

41. Laura Marling “Semper Femina”

42. Jesus and Mary Chain “Damage and Joy”

43. Noveller “Pink Sunset For No One”

44. Charly Bliss “Guppy”

45. Nite Jewel “Real High”

46. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith “The Kid”

47. Chelsea Wolfe “Hiss Spun”

48. Saint Etienne “Home Counties”

49. Juana Molina “Halo”

50. Rhiannon Giddens “Freedom Highway

Live photo of Jesus and Mary Chain by Bev Davies

NITE JEWEL (photo by Angel Ceballos)

CHELSEA WOLFE (photo by Angel Ceballos)

The 50 Best Records of 2017

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Tribute to Julie Willing RIP 2017

Sorry to hear that Julie Willing is no longer with us. She lived in San Francisco for over 30 years, and was definitely a central figure to my years there as an adult (1989-1995). Tim and Julie were a fixture to the Mission District and good times. They are the first couple who I knew well, who had a kid in 1990, 5 years before all my other friends. Siobhan Willing is now 27 years old. The Old SF is disappearing and we are on to the next period. All the best!

Tribute to Julie Willing RIP 2017

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